Vacancy: tenure-track junior professor position in Sustainable Crop Production

02-12-2020

 

The Agricultural Faculty at the University of Bonn just posted a tenure-track junior professor position in Sustainable Crop Production: https://www.uni-bonn.de/die-universitaet/stellenangebote/dez.-3/w1-sustainable-crop-production-wisna. The successful applicant can get tenured after 6 years, given a positive evaluation.

What makes this call special, and what raises the stakes for our faculty, is that applicants must have received their doctoral degrees within the last four years – so this is a rare chance for very early-career researchers to get a shot at tenure! It is difficult to evaluate very young researchers, however, or to reach many of them through the usual channels, so I’m reaching out to my network for help.

It is very important to me, and also for the character of the faculty here in Bonn, that we find someone with a credible research profile in Sustainable Crop Production, ideally contributing a systems perspective, and ready to consider ecological, economic and social perspectives of sustainability, ecosystem services, multifunctional agriculture or other ‘holistic’ concepts that help advance the sustainable agriculture agenda. Innovative approaches such as agroforestry, regenerative agriculture etc. would be very welcome (to me), as well as an interest in international agricultural research.

Some of my colleagues are open to awarding this position to a molecular biologist or another specialist, but in my view we need someone with a strong background in agricultural sciences and/or an interdisciplinary research profile. I find this critical to ensure that we can really familiarize our students with the principles of Sustainable Crop Production. What we need more of is systems expertise – a broad view of agriculture that attempts to capture all (or at least many) aspects that are relevant to the interdisciplinary concept of sustainability.

You are receiving this message, because I believe that you’ve been involved in shaping young scientists that would be a good fit for this position. I would very much appreciate any support you can provide in making suitable candidates aware of this unique opportunity!